What were they thinking: more patent abuse

I don't know about you, but I am getting tired of the way that our industry is abusing the patent systems and as a result costing tax payers a huge amount of money...

I don’t know about you, but I am getting tired of the way that our industry is abusing the patent systems and as a result costing tax payers a huge amount of money. I should not have to be paying for company squabbles but I am. While they pay for the lawyers it is you and me who pays for the judge, court officials, building etc. It is Apple that has my hairs prickling again even though I use their products and prefer them over the competition. It was only six weeks ago that I talked about the crazy Apple patents that had been granted then. This time it is another design patent.

I would like to bring to your attention Design Patent 670,713 issued November 13th 2012 and is for a “Display screen or portion thereof with animated graphical user interface”.

This patent is for turning a page. I kid you not! Now being a design patent they are not attempting to say they have patented the idea of turning a page, but of the graphics that are displayed while they are turning the page. The patent shows three images, the first of which is shown here. The other two figures show the page further advanced in being turned.

Now come on, a patent is meant to be novel and non-obvious. This is neither. I have seen so many animations for this for years on various different devices and there is nothing here that is not non-obvious except perhaps that nobody else has done it “exactly” like this. Who cares! And it took three Apple engineers to come up with this amazing piece of technology! I am not going to name them because I am sure they are just as embarrassed about this as I would be.

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Stop buying their stupid products. If you give them money you just inspire their greed.
In todays's fast pace design cycle it is nearly impossible to come up with a new idea, let alone a unique product. If there is money involved, the idea/product will be stolen/copied.
Enforcing patents and copyrights is nearly impossible. To date, few perpatrators have been punished enough to discourage anyone else from trying. Maybe a mind wipe would work?
Just my opinion.

EE Times electronic version comes with the page turner video and the sound of the page as well.
Will UBM have to fight this patent as well?
Also, don't fool yoursef that we don't pat for the lawyers and clerks! Price increase on the next version.

Nothing wrong with patents, but this is really is the limit. In Europe we strived against software patents, and this is a perfect example why I am against software patents: They only do delay proper software development. Hey, don't you agree that is one of the reasons why we are stuck with lousy software products from Micro$oft? Talking about greed.... And for Apple: They at least do proper product and software engineering, but a lot of people are not happy with their patent policy.

@Navelpluis: Agree with your views on software only patents... there was an event here Silicon Valley last week (didn't get to attend!) where I heard they talked about increasing fees for NPE's/Trolls to make it expensive to sit on a bunch of patents and sue at the first opportunity.
Check out the site and the Conference Resource links:
Solutions to the Software Patent Problem
http://law.scu.edu/hightech/2012-solutions-to-the-software-patent-problem.cfm
MP Divakar

One of the many problems with software patents is it takes about 10..12 years of working on a really good idea to work out all of the issues.
Examples: spreadsheets and word processors.
The other problem is a troll can shut down someone with good tech. I don't have the reference handy, but the example of the speech recognition tech where the real inventor won the first of 10 cases against a troll, but it cost a huge amount of money ($100 mill IIRC) and he realized he could win every battle and lose the war, so he quit.

Anybody ever watch commercial television? Digital video effects generators having page turns have been available for decades. I despise software patents. With their 17/20 year terms software patents are the enemy of innovation. There is no way for a coder to know when he is infringing and no way to avoid penalty if the infringement is revealed. He is not protected even if the infringing code is for personal use since fair use, as in copyrights, does not exist for patents.

Almost as ludicrous as the copyright of the "Happy Birthday" song which purportedly brings in $2m/year to Time Warner, which owns the rights. The good news is that is will return to public domain circa 2030 so we can legally start singing it again without it denting our wallets.
I can't wait.

That is why I prefer the Horde Happy Birthday Song (sung as a dirge)
lyrics (well, one set of them):
http://www.whitetreeaz.com/vintage/bdaysong.htm
sung:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udXaYGzgGuQ&playnext=1&list=PL084681D2970B5DCF&feature=results_video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V62sNmicpH4&feature=related

I have seen so many animations for this for years on various different devices and there is nothing here that is not non-obvious except perhaps that nobody else has done it “exactly” like this.
If so, the patent wont stand in a trial. Why not try to invalidate the patent?
If nobody done "exactly" like this, but did otherwise means, you can still do it those ways without violating the patent. Then why are you worried about abuse?

The more I read about this sort of thing, the more I believe patents should be scrapped altogether. The ideas will still be developed and the products will still be sold because coming up with ideas sells products and selling products is their income stream. As it is, people are actually dying because of patents (not page turns of course) so they are essentially quite evil. On the copyright front, I reckon 30-50 years from publish date with some protection during writing. AND, I reckon as soon as a copyrighted work is not available for sale after the first 5 years, the patent should lapse automatically. Check the constitution, copyright is a monopoly granted for a time in consideration of the enrichment of society by authors, not a means to manipulate pricing by withholding supply. Finally, the copyright should be with the author only, not tradeable to one publishing house, so that the author gets his dues and there is still competition in the market. I just don't understand how the constitution can be so ignored by law makers.

Agree 100% with you on this Brian.
It takes competitors $$$ to fight patents even with obvious prior art. Often this creates a detente between the large companies due to countersuit possibilities. (clearly not with Apple and Samsung)
Thus it is the smaller companies that typically have common sense 'innovation' stifled.

Brian, hindsight is always 20-20.
First, this is a design patent as you point out. NOT a utility patent. So how is this holding up innovation???? Why does this bother anyone? Are there not at least 1 Million ways to simulate on a screen that a page of a book has been turned?
There are numerous ways to differentiate one's product with a design patent. And that is exactly why it is done. Or should we all go protest in front of the Gucci store for their use of the letter G on their handbags. I mean, come on, how unique is that - diamonds and the letter G?? Let's all go fight for the rights of all cheap handbag manufacturers in the world so they can use the letter G on their handbags also!!!
Or would everyone rather that every visual aspect of a successful product be susceptible to copying? Then we can all trick the public into buying crap instead of what they thought they were buying.
Come on folks. Put your emotions behind something other than a computer image of a page turn.

@comfortable: You are very rifht! Most comments in this forum addressed utility patents. Design patents are specifically meant to keep copycats out and the patent holder has every right to enforce it.
MP Divakar

Patents are a racket.
'Sealed crustless sandwich'
http://www.freepatentsonline.com/6004596.html
'Method of swinging on a swing' - US6368227
http://www.freepatentsonline.com/6368227.html
Big companies love the racket it as it builds a barrier-to-entry for new smaller competitors. Big companies sometimes cross-license and effectively build a cartel.

Thank you comfortable for actually thinking before responding. I wonder how many people who responded have patents against their name? I have been absolutely livid seeing competitors copy my work and there was nothing I could do as my company did not apply for protection and yes, in one instance, that was a design patent where we came up with a unique and actually functional graphic display of an object.
Patents have value, the issue is perhaps the patent office and their staff who are not up to the job?

The problem with SW patents is the "not obvious to a skilled practitioner of the art". It takes (in SW) 10..12 years to become skilled - any basic combo of education and practice.
the USPTO cannot hire enough "skilled in the arts" folks, and they are overwhelmed by the caseload. They will never be able to hire enough.
So - what is obvious to us (we skilled in the arts) is not obvious to them. Nor do they have any grasp on prior art.